Ethics: Trust In Nonprofit Organizations

Ethics Essay

It would seem that the very heart of a not for profit organization, a corporation who, by design, has chosen to serve the public would be centered in trust. According to David O. Renz & Associates, the authors of our textbook state: “trust is the essential lifeblood of the nonprofit sector – trust that nonprofits will fulfill this implicit social contract. To ensure that this trust is sustained, I argue, five core values must permeate these organizations, shaping their ethics. These values are integrity, openness, accountability, service and charity (In the original sense of that term)” (Renz, 2010).
With that in mind, I have chosen three nonprofit organizations to evaluate by examining their websites for their core values.
Komen Foundation has come under fire for two issues. The first issue is that Nancy Brinker, founder and then CEO caused uproar among supporters of Komen and even heads of other nonprofit agencies with her unprecedented 64% pay increase, taking her annual salary to $684,000. Critics argue that this financial move was unethical and Brinker has since stepped down. The other furor began when The Komen Foundation decided to defund Planned Parenthood. As quoted by NBC News: “ In early 2012, Komen announced it was pulling its grants for breast-cancer screenings from Planned Parenthood, drawing an immediate backlash from Komen supporters and abortion rights advocates. Within days, Nancy Brinker, the group’s founder and CEO, reversed the decision to defund the organization” (NBC News,
Their goal is to do everything possible to take care of the foster children as they age-out of care, and aid them in connecting to their community. I came across about this organization during some of my research, but I was surprised to find how difficult it was to find the umbrella organization. When I googled Connected by 25, I was referred to local chapters, none of which talked about the founder, the headquarters of the organization, or links to any other groups working in different areas of the country. I finally found a tiny reference at the bottom of the Hillsborough chapter website that identified the trademark as belonging to CB25 Initiative, Inc. This website seemed to be a source of training and data management rather than an inspirational leader, referring to the National Youth in Transition database. By reviewing a few of the CB25 websites, I found that the intentions of this group are very good. Their code of ethics varies from site to site, but their overall intention is to identify and deliver transitional services to the newly aged-out foster youth. The website I like the most was the CB25 from Hillsborough County, Florida. They detailed their mission statement and had easy access to understand all the programs they provided to empower these usually helpless, homeless youth. They also included success stories and a large plea for money – offering matching grant funding as an